Sheryl Slocum

Sheryl Slocum

BIO:Sheryl Slocum lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she teaches English as a second language and ESL teaching methods. On the side, she edits, gives private ESL lessons, and leads poetry writing/reading workshops. Themes that appear in her work often relate to insights gained as a church member, a mother of three (now grown) children, and a former Peace Corps and Roman Catholic Relief volunteer in Chad, Africa, and Lumberton, New Mexico. Raised in the West and on the East Coast, living much of her married life in the South, Sheryl has been a Wisconsinite since 1991. A former member of the Root River Poets in Racine, she is now a member of the Hartford Avenue Poets in Milwaukee.

Sheryl’s work has appeared in small press venues since the mid-1980s. Her poems have won several prizes and honorable mentions. They can be read in the Hartford Avenue Poets’ anthology, Masquerades and Misdemeanors (Pebblebrook Press, 2013). For Sheryl, her most satisfying publications are those actually read by friends and peers: The Wisconsin Academy Review, The Anglican Theological Review and The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar.

Poetry

On the Great Vigil

On the evening of the Great Vigilthe sun set at the end of our street,and the neighborhood went up in flame.

As I walked the dog into the conflagration,I was busy thinking of my daughter,pale with her white tee shirt and red hair,standing like a candle beside our old friend’s bed,orange sun blazing behind her. Our friend turned

his eyes from death just once to recognize her,but not to know her name. Perhaps he saw heras the taper lighting new fire for the dark placehe was about to traverse.

The sun set. The dog and I turned back, chill creepingup our legs as we passed througha community of cinders while my daughter,tears glistening in the first headlights, drove home.

Originally published in Anglican TheologicalReview, Winter 2011

Migration

A sudden swirl of gabble, flutter, chatter, preen, and cluckmakes my yard into someone else’s conversation.No stone goes unturned, no topic unpecked.Even the dead rabbit I never mentioned to the kidsgets flipped and flopped about like last week’s gossip.The children are alarmed, then amazed.Better not to tell them this is me twenty years from now,descending with cronies enroute to Florida or Arizona,pinching the grandkids, noting with magpie eyethe looks that pass or don’t pass between husband and wife.Instead, I say, “It’s the flocking instinct.” “Winter’s coming.”“They feel it in their bones and gather before flying south.”Instinctively, I flex knees and elbows, crick my neck to peerat the sky, continue the old seesaw bargain with Time.